Viv Hardwick looks at the impressive £1m plan for Darlington Arts Centre and talks to Arts Head Lindsay Tuck about the aim of creating a new home for youth theatre and dance in the North-East.

A NEW dawn may be breaking for youth theatre in Darlington, but the cash to pay for a dream revamp of the town's historic arts centre is still a little way over the horizon. So far £700,000 has been raised to replace the building's toilet block and corridor next to the Myles Meehan Gallery with a glass-topped atrium, theatre entrance and dressing rooms. There is also cash to turn the current ageing dance studio into a 100-seater performance and rehearsal space.

Three artists are being invited to put forward redesigns for the impressive front entrance and drive - currently housing a circular flower bed, disabled parking, entrance ramp and steps - for what is, surprisingly, not a listed building.

But another £350,000 will have to be raised from business sponsors, public donations and other sources for the centre to boast a fully-equipped first-floor cinema with £100,000 lift.

Head of Darlington Arts, Lindsay Tuck, says: "No, to be perfectly honest we haven't got the million yet. We've got £300,000 from the Arts Council and £410,000 of match funding for the first phase and we're looking to do a business plan to improve catering for the extra visitors and we're also looking at private sponsorship and public donations. We need another £350,000 and that extra money would be spent on the cinema with its £100,000 lift, which is a large chunk of money."

Planning permission has been passed on the alterations, which are also being funded by Darlington Borough Council, the Northern Rock Foundation and County Durham Environmental Trust (CDENT).

Darlington Arts is anxious to hear from users, particularly young people, about the new-look design and has set up a foyer area display with comment cards for the next month. Lindsay says: "The main focus is for the arts centre to become a centre of excellence for children's theatre. That's not to say that it's not a centre for everybody. What we mean by that is that we've already got the CTC (Cleveland Thetre Company), which creates plays for young people and the National Association of Youth Theatres. What we want to do is work with young people, who will guide us and be given the chance to work behind the scenes as well as acting. Youth Services, the sixth form college and college of technology will also be using the performance spaces.

"A youth people's forum has started meeting, but we're probably looking for a sexier title."

Work on phases one and two are due to start in September this year and the aim is to keep the building open as much as possible until construction ends in May-June 2006.

Two years of planning has gone into suggested improvements, which will create ground floor dressing rooms to assist disabled theatre groups, and the glass-topped atrium, providing space for everything from a poetry reading or acoustic performance to intimate meeting areas.

Lindsay adds: "We're asking for real costings now. The most exciting thing is, with the combination of Northern Rock Foundation funding and CDENT and Darlington Borough Council, what we are doing with the outside. We've invited three artists to come forward and we've given them the brief.

"It's not a listed building, we've double checked all of that. The only thing that has any restraint on use is the covenant that the building must be used as an arts venue, so it can't be knocked flat and used for anything else.

"Water, light, sculpture or grass are on the agenda for artists and they'll do something that says arts centre to anyone who comes down the street rather than library or municipal building."

The re-design will also try to tackle the steep climb from pavement-level to the arts centre reception area which faces users at present.

"Well, there's been an awful lot of hard work and we started as soon as I came here two years ago and the only thing that held us up was the Arts Council changing the application funding time.

"What has been really gratifying is that you are given three opportunities to fail but we actually passed at the first time of asking"

Also approaching is a competition to find a new name for the centre.

"What we're aware of is that the building is called Darlington Arts Centre instead of something snappy like Arc or Baltic or Sage. Now is that what users want or do they want to think about an identity or a brand? My feeling is that I'd like it to have a name and a brand, but I might not be right," jokes Lindsay who admits she's already got a favourite title in mind.

Published: 27/01/2005